Star Wars Episode 7 Ticket Pre-Sales Breaking Records

Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens is already breaking records. Ticket pre-sales opened on Monday and now major movie theater chains and ticket-sellers are reporting extraordinarily strong results.

Fandango traffic jumped to seven times its typical levels, with Force Awakens already having pre-sold eight times as many tickets as the previous record-holder, The Hunger Games. And that's just after one day.

"Movie theaters are continually adding new show times on Fandango to meet the phenomenal demand," the company said in a statement (via Deadline). "The enthusiasm for this year's most anticipated movie is out of this world and we expect it to continue all the way to its debut on December 18."

In addition, advance ticket sales for The Force Awakens at AMC Theatres have broken single-day records by more than 10 times. After just 12 hours, AMC sold out more than 1,000 shows across the country.

Sales on Movietickets.com are also strong, representing 95 percent of the site's total sales since Monday.

It hasn't been entirely smooth sailing, for everyone, however. One theater chain, Alamo Drafthouse, suffered site crashes in the wake of the ticket demand. The company, which directed people to Fandango during the outage, has since apologized.

The Force Awakens opens on December 16 in France and December 17 in the UK, before rolling out to the United States on December 18. Some theaters are also holding special marathons where they'll show all six previous movies before The Force Awakens. The movie stars John Boyega, Daisy Ridley, Adam Driver, Oscar Isaac, Max von Sydow, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, and Mark Hamill.

The latest trailer for The Force Awakens was released last night during Monday Night Football. Watch it above.